I was deep in meditation. I asked, "Is there a plan for my life? What is the plan!?" I heard a voice say "It's in the key of B", and I saw the symbol for a flat in musical notation. The plan for my life is in the key of B flat! I understood this immediately. I have a record of Pete Fountain playing the clarinet. It's a clarinet tuned to the key of B flat. I like to improvise on my guitar along with the record. The plan for my life is: "We're improvising!".

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Friday, March 3, 2017

Problems can be identified and solutions found without experiencing anger, fear, and hate. But we are programmed by the media to react with those emotions every time we think of the other political party or hear their views expressed. It is a major cause of political polarization in the US.

Those of us who follow the news on TV, radio, newspapers or the internet are bombarded by so many unreliable sources of information, if we don't make a concerted effort to pay attention to whether the information is reliable or not, we are very likely to be misinformed and manipulated by journalists, politicians, and political organizations who are taking advantage of us to advance their own personal agenda. The vast majority of what is considered "news" is crafted to get your attention, influence your opinion, make you react the way they want, and keep you coming back for more. Accuracy is of secondary importance. The news rarely gives you an accurate objective representation of reality. We are programmed by the media to react with anger every time we think of the other party or hear their views expressed. It is a major cause of political polarization in the US. This post should help you understand why and how the news media misinforms and manipulates you. With that knowledge you will be able to see through the illusions spun by media manipulators.

A good introduction to this subject is the article at Cracked.com 5 Ways To Stay Sane In An Era Of Non-Stop Outrage which discusses media techniques used to manipulate the public. In the article, the author David Wong, discusses President Trump's media strategy. The principles he outlines are generally applicable so it is worth looking at the article even if you don't share the author's political views.

Here is a brief excerpt along with the section titles to give you an idea of what the article is about:

Hey, you know what happens when you read something really enraging on the internet? You get a hit of dopamine. And even though it's a "bad" feeling, you immediately want to feel it again, because anything is better than being bored. Well, people who know how to manipulate this mechanism rule the world. Here's what you need to know now:
...
Ignore Headlines Telling You To Feel An Emotion
...
Remember That People Literally Get Paid To Upset You
...
Know That If You Can Be Trolled, You Can Be Controlled
...
Understand The "Firehose Of Falsehoods"
...
You Must Separate The Signal From The Noise

Dopamine is a chemical found in the brain that plays a role in addiction (see below). Journalists want to get people addicted to the news because journalists make more money that way.

Firehose of Falsehoods referrs to a modern propaganda technique (see below).

The term "Trolled" is used by Wong to mean that there are people who are deliberately outrageously provocative. They are not really trying to convince anyone of their way of thinking. They are trying to provoke people to react in a way creates publicity (or has some other effect) that helps the provocateur make money or accomplish their aims. They are controlling people (manipulating people) by provoking a reaction from them.

For example, Milo Yiannopoulos, a British public speaker and writer, often makes provocative statements. Recently, at the University of California at Berkeley, protesters demonstrating against Milo rioted and the ensuing publicity increased sales of his books. Some people who might not otherwise be sympathetic to Milo became sympathetic to him because of their outrage at the violence. Those rioters didn't understand they were being manipulated by Milo into helping him sell books and gain supporters.

During the last presidential election campaign, Donald Trump made many provocative statements which attracted so much attention they nearly obliterated the other primary candidates from coverage in the news media. This publicity advantage helped him win the Republican nomination even though his statements were offensive to many people. The outraged reaction of many Democratic party supporters delighted some Republicans and moved them to support Trump. Trump's nomination stunned establishment Democrats and Republicans because they were not aware of how trolling and manipulation works.

Be wary of provocateurs on both sides. They are not telling you about anything real. The "ideology" they espouse is not a real threat because it is invented and inflated to promote themselves. Nobody, including themselves and their "supporters" really believe what they are saying. Many Democratic supporters were stunned and frightened when Trump won the general election. Many of Trump's supporters thought this reaction was humorous because they never took Trump's rhetoric literally.

The provocateurs are trying to upset you, to distort your view of reality for their own personal gain. Don't fall for it.

And the news media is a willing and deliberate accomplice, sensationalizing news, spreading rumors, giving the provocateurs lots of publicity because the journalists capitalize on the public's addiction to outrage by turning it into an addiction to news that they can personally profit from.

Many politicians are also ready to jump on the bandwagon, taking the side that will get them the most votes, and benefiting from publicity. Many politicians perform for the voters in whatever way they think will get them the most votes. Unfortunately this too often involves playing on the voter's emotions by demonizing people with different political views. This increases polarization and is tearing our society apart. A true leader would explain why the policies he espouses are for the best without denying that the other side can have legitimate concerns because of their different circumstances and situations.

Be aware of these media tricks that are used to manipulate you and keep you hooked on the news.

Be suspicious of headlines that stir up emotions.

But also notice how an entire story can be crafted to produce emotional reactions.

Be suspicious of rumors presented as news, and news stories based on unnamed sources. That unnamed CIA official might not exist or might be a retired administrative assistant who has no qualifications to make their opinion newsworthy.

The other side is not necessarily evil or stupid. Partisan journalists and commentators often to stir up hate by demonizing people on the other side.

A subtle but common method of demonization involves describing extremists as members of a group. For example, associating anarchists with Democrats or white supremacists with Republicans. This tends to create the impression that they are typical of the group and that all members of the group are extremists. During the civil rights era, journalists stopped mentioning the race of criminals for this reason. But it is still one of the leading causes of polarization because each side comes to believe the other is mostly extremists when in fact most people are usually quite reasonable. And it can be a self-fulfilling cycle because when people on one side stereotype the other side, it will make the other side less tolerant of them and more likely to demonize them in return.

Another method of demonization is the use of inappropriate or undeserved epithets such as lefty, snowflake, social justice warrior, Nazi, misogynist, or racist to describe someone or a group. These types of epithets are used to deliberately prejudice you by making you think someone is an extremist when their point of view might be reasonable. You will often find, if you look carefully, that people who have different political views from you are not evil or stupid. They are just in a different situation or circumstances and they are affected by government policy in ways that are different from you.

Problems can be identified and solutions found without fomenting anger, fear, and hate. Those who are fostering those emotions are not the good guys no matter which side they claim to be on.

Even reading an article or watching a video made by someone who is angry can influence you and make you angry too. Many bloggers are angry and write posts that spread their anger to their readers.

In many cases in history, people who were on the wrong side thought they were doing good. If your basic assumptions about people who disagree with you are wrong, you can easily be on the wrong side and not know it.

Out of context quotes are often used to make people think someone said something they never really said. In written articles, notice if quotation marks are used to indicate a direct quotation. If not, they may be paraphrasing or mischaracterizing what someone said. If you can find a video of the story that has the person making the quote that shows what they said before and after they made the statement, that can be very helpful, but video clips with just the quote might be taken out of context too.

Predictions of doom and disaster that never really occur are another way they play on our emotions.

Be suspicious about "ordinary people" or "protesters" who are really political operatives impersonating ordinary people. Sometimes they fool the journalists quoting them, sometimes the journalists are complicit in the fraud.

Headlines are often misleading. Writers want you to read their stories so they often use misleading headlines to spark your interest or get a rise out of your emotions. Just scanning the headlines without reading the stories is a good way to becomes misinformed. When you read an article, you should try to click through to the original source of the information if possible so you can better assess if it is reliable or not. If possible, use a search engine to see what other information is available and if there are corroborating sources or other points of view.

Many journalists are not objective reporters of facts. They may have strong opinions and instead of trying to write news stories objectively, they deliberately try to sway public opinion through their work by expressing opinions, making partisan arguments, using compelling images and audio, or withholding information that doesn't support the point of view they are trying to spread. When journalists try to influence pubic opinion, it can be particularly effective because many people assume journalists report objectively and if they don't suspect someone is trying to manipulate them, it is much easier for them to be influenced because they will not be as critical in judging what they hear or read. Also, many journalists might not be deliberately manipulative, but everyone has their own opinions and will influence others through the way they communicate through their tone of voice, choice of words and facial expressions. Even if journalists think they are being objective, the are most probably not.

Astroturf movements are political movements that are orchestrated by political organizations but made to look like they are grass roots movements - movements rising spontaneously among ordinary people. When you hear about protests, try to find out who is funding them. If they are not funded by many individual donations from the public but by one or a few foundations or political organizations, then those protests are not genuine, they are political operations designed to manipulate the public. The astroturf link above also discusses how people are manipulated and includes a few videos on the subject.

"If a drug produces increases in dopamine in these limbic areas of the brain, then your brain is going to understand that signal as something that is very reinforcing, and will learn it very rapidly," says Volkow. "And so that the next time you get exposed to that stimuli, your brain already has learned that that's reinforcing, and you immediately—what we call a type of memory that's conditioning—will desire that particular drug." Over time, the consistently high levels of dopamine create plastic changes to the brain, desensitizing neurons so that they are less affected by it, and decreasing the number of receptors. That leads to the process of addiction, wherein a person loses control and is left with an intense drive to compulsively take the drug."

The article is about addictive drugs but the article at Cracked.com linked above explains that the same process occurs when you experience anger from items such as news articles you see on the internet.

The term "Firehose of Falsehoods" mentioned in the article at cracked.com refers to a Russian propaganda technique that is very similar what happens when we follow the news. It is explained in the article The Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda Mode by Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews at rand.org. Below are excerpts that give a brief overview of what it is and how it works.

Distinctive Features of the Contemporary Model
for Russian Propaganda

1. High-volume and multichannel

2. Rapid, continuous, and repetitive

3. Lacks commitment to objective reality

4. Lacks commitment to consistency

...

Why Is Rapid, Continuous, and Repetitive
Propaganda Successful?

• First impressions are very resilient.

• Repetition leads to familiarity, and familiarity leads
to acceptance.

...

How Does Propaganda Undercut Perceptions of Reality?

• People are poor judges of true versus false information—and they do not necessarily remember that particular information was false.

• Information overload leads people to take shortcuts in determining the trustworthiness of messages.

• Familiar themes or messages can be appealing even if they are false.

• Statements are more likely to be accepted if backed by evidence, even if that evidence is false.

• Peripheral cues—such as an appearance of objectivity—can increase the credibility of propaganda.

The full article contains a section on how to combat this kind of propaganda ... it is not an optimistic assessment.

Every day we are bombarded by so many sources of information that are unreliable, if we don't make a deliberate effort to notice whether information is reliable or not, we are very likely to be misinformed and easily manipulated by journalists, politicians, and political organizations who are using us for their own personal gain.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

I watched President Trump's rally yesterday. When he invited a supporter from the crowd to come up on the stage and speak, it made me think about what I would like someone to say to the TV cameras. I wished that President Trump would do more to help unite the country. I am not very fond of the news media but I have mixed feelings about the way he attacks them. I think someone should call them out, but the way he does it keeps the anger and hate circulating. Anyway, this is what I wish someone would say to the TV cameras at a rally. It fits in with President Trump's theme of making America great again:

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The people here tonight are a great group of people. You are really great.

I love this country and the people in this country.

We are a great people. We are a great country.

We have great musicians, entertainers, athletes, scientists, workers, and entrepreneurs. We have a great economy, a great political system, and great defense forces. We have great people.

Many people from all over the world want move here and become citizens.

They believe we are a great country.

We can believe that ourselves - that our country is a great country.

But we can become even better. We can try to reduce the political polarization in this country.

We can understand that people with different views can still be good people.

Here are a couple of examples to show what I mean:

Globalists want to increase immigration to help refugees. Nationalists want to control immigration to keep wages from falling so they can provide for their children. Both sentiments are understandable. As a great people, we can find a compromise through honest discussion and democratic processes.

Another example. Environmentalists want regulations that protect the environment. But workers could benefit from less regulation because that would increase economic growth which would improve working conditions and salaries that would help them provide for their children. Both sentiments are understandable. As a great people, we can find a compromise through honest discussion and democratic processes.

I could go through every issue that divided us in the last election and show that both sides have legitimate concerns*.

We have to come together as a people. We have to solve this problem of political polarization because it is getting worse and worse and it is tearing apart our culture. The news media and the politicians react to public opinion. Politicians want your vote, the news media wants you to watch their programs and read their papers. They are not going to help us change. We have to change ourselves and then they will respond to that change.

There is a sociologist, Jonathan Haidt (H a i d t) who studies political polarization. I hope the news media will look at his work and discuss it on their programs. And I hope everyone else will look up his videos on youtube. Jonathan Haidt (H a i d t), he is a sociologist who studies political polarization.

* Below is a list of political issues and differing opinions about them. My aim is not to convince anyone to change their opinion but to show that reasonable people may have different opinions for legitimate reasons.

Abortion

A woman has a right to control her body.

The rights of a person start at the moment of conception and it is wrong to destroy a helpless individual.

Immigration

People should be allowed to come to the US to have the same economic opportunities as citizens or to find sanctuary from war or persecution in their home country.

Immigration should be regulated because too many immigrants may lower wages or compete for jobs. Terrorists, drugs, and criminals might enter the country when borders are not protected. Too many illegal immigrants may strain the resources of cities causing property taxes to rise which also increases the cost of rental housing.

Environmentalism

Regulations are needed to protect the environment.

Unnecessary regulations hinder economic growth. Reducing regulations will cause economic growth which will force employers to compete for workers resulting in improved working conditions and raiseng salaries that will help workers provide for their children.

Government funding of arts and media.

Art and media enrich our culture and government funding is needed to support works that would not be produced by private enterprise.

Different people have different opinions about art and media and it is not the government's proper role to force people to pay taxes for works that they do not want to pay for or that express opinions they disagree with.

Judicial Appointments

The US constitution was written a long time ago when our culture was different than it is today and we need judges who will interpret the constitution in a way that is appropriate for our current conditions

Different people have different opinions on many issues and judges should interpret the law as it was written not according to their personal opinions or preferences. Some judges might hold progressive views, others might hold conservative views and the only way to ensure fair rulings is for judges to rule on the law as it was written not according to their personal views. Appointing a judge who will interpret the law as it is written is the best way to compromise between those who want a progressive interpretation of the law and those who want a conservative interpretation of the law. If the laws that were written in past times are not appropriate for us today, then there are mechanisms to update and amend them. It is not appropriate for judges to do this unilaterally.

The Electoral College

It is undemocratic and unfair when the candidate for president who gets the most votes does not win the election.

When the states agreed to form a nation, the less populous states were concerned that their interests would be ignored by the more populous states so they all agreed to put protections for smaller states in the constitution. These protections include the electoral college and the US senate. Every state that joined the US since that time agreed to abide by the constitution and eliminating the electoral college after this agreement would be unfair to less populous states.

The Minimum Wage

Working people deserve a wage that will provide for the necessities of life.

When the minimum wage is too high, it makes it impossible for young people to find entry level jobs because they lack skills that can provide an adequate value to their employer. If young people cannot get entry level jobs, then they will never develop skills and experience needed to get higher paying jobs. Raising the minimum wage also increases the incentive for employers to use automation to replace workers making jobs for unskilled workers even scarcer.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Evil can only exist if you are thinking of yourself. Good and bad ultimately resolve to "I like" or "I don't like". Without "I" there is no liking or disliking.

People think of self as different things, the body, the brain, the mind... Self is just a word. It means what people think it means. It is an opinion. When you notice how many unpleasant emotions disappear when you stop thinking of yourself, you realize that self is an opinion, an option, an illusion. Noticing how unpleasant emotions disappear provides positive reinforcement that can help condition you to dispense with the idea of self.

That doesn't mean you should indulge in uncompassionate actions or ignore uncompassionate actions by others. It means you can act out of clear sighted wisdom and compassion unpolluted by anger. And it doesn't mean you don't feel compassion, it means you feel compassion for everyone not just some people.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Each person is beautiful. Like a snowflake, each person is an individual, unique. Beautiful like a mathematical theorem or music. Each person has their own combination of traits that combine to make them unique, special, that tell a story of their history going back to the beginning of time. Physical traits, psychological traits. If a person is unpleasant, there is a cause, a logic to it. Music in a minor key can still be beautiful. All life is a miracle, all life is beautiful like music, art, natural law, or mathematics.

The beauty of each person is a kind of beauty that evokes love. A platonic love, like love of nature, like awe of nature. Love doesn't mean you should be their slave. It means you want the best for them, for them to be happy, for them to get from life what they came here to learn. They can't do that if you solve all their problems.

To see the beauty in each person, you have to stop thinking about yourself. When you see a person, you might think of them in relation to yourself. Are they friendly or not? Pleasant or not? Attractive or not? Good, bad, nice, nasty, better, worse, higher, lower, liked, disliked? All these ways we think of people put them in relation to ourselves. Like monkeys in a cage determining a social hierarchy. It blinds us to the true beauty of each person because the feelings produced by those ways of thinking confuse us, make us defensive.

To see the true beauty of each person, you have to stop thinking of yourself in relation to other people. You have to forget yourself. This is not mystical. Forgive yourself, you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be the top monkey. When you see a person you might not like, let go of your attitudes and prejudices. Let go of your dislike, anger, fear, or envy. Forget yourself. Accept people as they are. We are all on a path of spiritual development, some are further along, some are less far. Don't think of yourself, understand, sympathize with the difficulties others had to endure which made them what they are. Look for the beauty in their uniqueness, in their variety. Relax. When you are at peace with yourself, you naturally stop thinking about yourself. All those feelings, liking, disliking, fearing, wanting, not wanting that create the dualistic mind set of self vs. other evaporate and you can see the truth, the beauty, the loveliness of each person.

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Followers

Eminent Researchers

Charles Darwin: ... I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.

Kurt Gödel: Materialism is false. ... The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived. ... The brain is a computing machine connected with a spirit. ... I don’t think the brain came in the Darwinian manner. In fact, it is disprovable. ... Mind is separate from matter. ... There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind.

Alan Turing: I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extrasensory perception, and the meaning of the four items of it, viz., telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis. These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. It is very difficult to rearrange one's ideas so as to fit these new facts in. Once one has accepted them it does not seem a very big step to believe in ghosts and bogies. The idea that our bodies move simply according to the known laws of physics, together with some others not yet discovered but somewhat similar, would be one of the first to go.

Max Planck (Nobel Prize for Physics): I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.

Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize for Physics): Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

Albert Einstein (Nobel Prize for Physics): On the other hand, however, every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble

...

I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.

Brian D. Josephson (Nobel Prize for Physics): What are the implications for science of the fact that psychic functioning appears to be a real effect? These phenomena seem mysterious, but no more mysterious perhaps than strange phenomena of the past which science has now happily incorporated within its scope.

Charles Robert Richet (Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine): 1. There is in us a faculty of cognition that differs radically from the usual sensorial faculties (Cryptesthesia). 2. There are, even in full light, movements of objects without contact (Telekinesis). 3. Hands, bodies, and objects seem to take shape in their entirety from a cloud and take all the semblance of life (Ectoplasms). 4. There occur premonitions that can be explained neither by chance nor perspicacity, and are sometimes verified in minute detail. Such are my firm and explicit conclusions.

Pierre Curie (Nobel Prize for Physics): It was very interesting, and really the phenomena that we saw appeared inexplicable as trickery—tables raised from all four legs, movement of objects from a distance, hands that pinch or caress you, luminous apparitions. All in a [setting] prepared by us with a small number of spectators all known to us and without a possible accomplice. The only trick possible is that which could result from an extraordinary facility of the medium as a magician. But how do you explain the phenomena when one is holding her hands and feet and when the light is sufficient so that one can see everything that happens?

Sir John Eccles (Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine): I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition ... we have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.